We’re starved for new talent.

I know, that sounds ridiculous, with more talent available all the time, we’re overloaded. Yet as a result of the tyranny of choice, we all turn to quality, which there is very little of. And what we’re really looking for is quality that transcends the niches, something everybody can cotton to and enjoy.

Like James Austin Johnson playing Donald Trump on SNL tonight.

I feel for SNL. If you wiped out the past four decades, the show might have a chance, but it pales in comparison to history. People don’t want the latest work of classic rock bands, why should they want a skit show with the same format it has always had. In the past, when network television still ruled, while pay cable was making its bones, if anything was successful you got an imitation, hopefully with a twist. Which is how we got “In Living Color,” a Fox show racier than SNL and better, who knew the Wayans brothers had this much talent? I mean I’d seen some of Keenan Ivory Wayans’s work, but I had no exposure to his brother Damon, the breakout star of “In Living Color.” Actually, I’d seen him in “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Roxanne” but I only knew his face, when set free he was amazing, I mean Homey D. Clown? And the Head Detective? You see you have to match the right performer with the right material in the right place for them to break through, now more than ever.

As for networks competing with each other…that’s so last century. Now networks are competing not only with other networks, but cable, streaming, YouTube, videogames, outlets are just trying to get a slice of the audience. It isn’t a matter of beating your competitor, it’s a matter of trying to compete with EVERY competitor. And the first breakout star was HBO, with its run to quality. HBO made shows no network would, that were closer to truth, to reality, than any network show. As a result, HBO burgeoned. Thursday night might have been NBC, but Sunday night was HBO. And if you’re still watching in real time, you’re over the hill, today everything is on demand, you watch what you want to when you want to.

Which is why awards shows and SNL are so challenged. Why blow all that time when you know when the show is over you can watch the clips that appeal to you, the internet will tell you what’s worth it, assuming you care.

But the problem with SNL is not so much its old format, cassette in an era of streaming, but the lack of uniformity in the culture, the lack of touchstones. You can’t do inside references if people don’t know the most obvious cultural elements that you’re digging into deeply. So today SNL must play very broad, and still there’s a lot most people don’t know about and don’t care about. I mean I don’t ever remember seeing Judge Jeannine Pirro. Why should I? She’s on Fox and I’m a Democrat! I mean I know the name, but I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. So when Cecily Strong, who I love, plays Ms. Pirro, all I see is exaggerated acting. It doesn’t resonate, I do not laugh.

As for Pete Davidson as Aaron Rodgers… Tonight a millennial who actually follows football told me they were hazy on the Rogers details, whereas I’ve been following the story closely. Then again, this guy can run circles around me when it comes to Esports.

As for Youngkin… I’ve never ever seen him on TV. I don’t live in Virginia and I rarely watch television news. I’m hoovering up the news, but in print, online, not on TV, where you get too much opinion and not enough facts. And that woman talking about the Toni Morrison book… I know the controversy, but was she playing the actual mother of the AP student who lost his marbles over “Beloved”? I mean I know the story, but not the personalities. Whereas in the sixties I’d know everybody, because there was so much less in the food chain and we all ate from the same trough.

So then they throw it to the only man we all know, the only person with universal mindshare, Donald Trump.

My first reaction is…is Alec Baldwin gonna come out of hiding to play the role? That can’t happen, right? Too much levity too soon after a tragic situation. So, the camera goes to a guy…

Who looks  almost nothing like Trump.

That’s how you cast today, you find someone who looks the part, it’s more important than acting. I mean couldn’t they find a better actor to play young Tony Soprano than James Gandolfini’s son? Of course!

I mean this guy had the hair, but his face was nothing like the Donald’s.

And then he started to talk.

It took a second to register, this guy sounded just like Trump. HE WAS TRUMP! This was the SNL of old, the seventies SNL, in which the performances were uncanny, where you laughed from the inside out. On today’s SNL everything is overbroad, whereas the best performers can be small.

And they let him go on. Or should I say this new Trump kept asking for more time and…the shtick of connecting to Virginia and Youngkin was funny, but it was that little reference in the middle that sealed the deal. He was talking about Mario, whose name was up on screen, and then, almost sotto voce, as a throwaway, he mentioned LUIGI!

Now this is funny stuff. Subtle stuff. This was a laugh buried deep in the routine, only there for those paying attention. But the truth is Mario and Luigi have been around for decades, they’ve got more name recognition than Drake! And who doesn’t love Mario and Luigi, the stars of Nintendo?

And this guy playing Trump never loses it, he stays in character, he doesn’t laugh at himself, he just keeps playing the role. And there are further asides, further minor laughs, and I’m saying to myself this guy is better than Alec Baldwin ever was. This guy WAS Trump, Alec Baldwin is Alec Baldwin, doing a broad, unbelievable characterization.

Now I had no idea who this guy was, I immediately went to my phone.

Turns out I was not the only person who got the message, there were numerous stories about James Austin Johnson and how he killed it as Trump on tonight’s SNL.

That’s the performer’s name. Turns out he’s famous for doing Trump, and now he’s graduated to SNL.

Are you getting this? It’s not like Johnson’s performances weren’t good enough on YouTube, he just needed to be plucked out of relative obscurity and put on TV. The idea of becoming an overnight star is passé. You hone your craft independently utilizing the free tools of the internet and you hang in there, for years, and wait for your lucky break, further recognition, which rarely happens anyway.

And I’m telling you about Mr. Johnson’s performance, but the truth is the reach of SNL is miniscule. Oh, it’s larger than so many other productions, but compared to its strength in the pre-internet world, IT’S DE MINIMIS!

But at least I saw James. And since it is the internet era, I went down the rabbit hole online to excavate his bio and performances, that’s one thing we couldn’t do in the days of yore.

So I don’t know what the future holds for Johnson, but I’m watching him, walking the tightrope, continuing to be excellent, for minutes, and I’m marveling at the performance, I immediately tell myself that I must tell my audience. Because I haven’t seen anything this good for a while, certainly not on SNL.

So check it out.

More of this please.

You can watch all of the opening, but to just catch James Austin Johnson start around four minutes in: https://bit.ly/3qjZMrv

Now what?

Used to be the promoter went bankrupt, families argued with insurance companies for years and by the time settlements were made no one was paying attention. But that was back before Bob Sillerman started rolling up the regional promoters in 1996, ultimately resulting in two powerhouse promotion companies, AEG and Live Nation, the latter of which is a publicly traded company.

On the surface it appears it was an independent promoter, unknown to most, ScoreMoreShows. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Live Nation purchased the company back in 2018: https://bit.ly/3BKmXx6 I.e. Astroworld was a Live Nation show.

So… There are insurance issues, and if policies don’t cover the loss, Live Nation has deep enough pockets to do so itself. However, what will be the stain on the company, to what degree will its stock take a hit?

Well, if we look at Facebook, the stock dips for a brief period of time and then goes sky high once again, because it all comes down to the money, and if you make it people will invest with you, and other than the Covid shutdown period, Live Nation has been putting up great numbers.

But this was an accident waiting to happen. Somehow, somewhere, sometime in the past the music industry decided that festival seating was preferable. I don’t care what promoters say, this is a way to squeeze in more attendees, despite their protestations that they’re adhering to fire marshal limits. And now the acts are in on it too, never mind the attendees. If everybody is close, there is more energy. But EVERYBODY can’t be close, but we’ve learned that almost everybody wants to be, which is why the expensive tickets always sell out first, it’s the cheap seats in the back that are hard to sell. But at festivals, there’s VIP and then the great unwashed masses. As for VIP…you’ve probably seen the video by now: https://bit.ly/3GWO0ZN There obviously wasn’t enough security, but why?

Festivals are not a new thing, ScoreMoreShows has experience. Maybe they did a poor job with barriers outside the venue, allowing attendees to storm in. HOWEVER, the dirty little secret is promoters can’t get enough people to work these shows. Even if they agree to, people don’t show up. You’ve heard about the Great Resignation, you’ve heard about the inability of restaurants and other businesses to fill jobs, well it’s the same in the concert industry too! But as we saw tonight, the risks are worse.

As for the public… In a country where the last president lied with impunity, where governors refuse to adhere to the law, where the unvaxxed don’t want to comply with mandates, why in hell should the hoi polloi obey the law? Then again, watching this video I was reminded of 1/6. What we need to do is arrest a bunch of these gate crashers. They’re easy to identify. Fine ’em, give ’em suspended sentences, no jail time, and community service. Believe me, word will get out. People won’t be crashing the gates in the future. Everybody thinks they’re immune, but there are cameras everywhere these days, if you want to commit crime make it white collar, otherwise you’re gonna get caught.

Which brings us to the deaths. As of this writing it isn’t confirmed it was a squish situation, but everybody seems to think it was.

Ever been squished? I have. It was in Boston, a free concert on the Common, with the Chambers Brothers, back in 1970, or maybe ’69, one of the most frightening experiences of my life. Sure, I’d worked my way up from the back, but I was not fighting to be up close and personal, I was a good thirty or more feet from the stage. And then the push began. And then I was squeezed between two people, who were also squeezed, running out of breath, the end was in sight. But in a stolen moment, there was a slight loosening of the crowd and I worked my way sideways, and out of the fray. Then again, I was not that far from the right, I wasn’t in the middle. So now…

I never fight to get up front, NEVER EVER! Because I know the crowd takes over and no one can save you, NO ONE! Once the mass starts to move, you’re all on your own. And as much as those on stage say to back off, it never works. The crowd is now an independent mass, with its own life, or shall I say death.

So, what next for festivals?

Well, honestly, some of these festivals are oversold, just to get from one stage to another is running a daunting gauntlet. But…

Festival seating…that’s why it’s called that, it started at FESTIVALS! And it ain’t the Woodstock Nation anymore, stoned hippies making way for their spiritual brothers, it’s everybody for themselves these days and you’ve got to fight for not only your right to party, to but get even a little bit in life. So, telling people who are struggling each and every day to back off is an impossibility.

And then there’s the elephant in the room, Astroworld was a hip-hop show. If it had been a country show, believe me, the mainstream press would be all over it, there’d be laws passed, but if it’s people of color…just like in other walks of life, they’re on their own.

Now if we look at George Floyd, a year and a half later, what we see is nothing has really changed, as I and too many with experience predicted. As a matter of fact, there’s been a backlash! Most notably with Defund the Police, which is a right wing mantra employed to rile up its constituents, getting them to vote. Just tune in to Fox News, you’ll see.

Furthermore, after Tuesday, consensus is the Democrats are too woke, and they need to move to the center, which means the marginalized have to go to the back of the bus, their needs have to be subjugated, like they always are.

But it gets even worse. On the right Black people are portrayed as takers, they’ve got an original sin that cannot be washed off.

Then again, hip-hop music is riddled with aggressiveness, gangs, bullets, mistreatment of women, but I don’t think that had anything to do with what happened tonight, but believe me you’ll read articles saying so.

So, this was a failure of security, plain and simple.

I read a tweet that when Drake took the stage as a surprise guest, the tweeter had been in line for merch for three hours. Getting people to man the merch tables is the hardest thing to do, at some gigs they reduce the number of merch stands because of this, because whoever shows up to work has to fill a more important position. But, if this tweet is true, and who knows, that would seem to indicate there weren’t enough workers at this gig, so…

At sporting events there are seats. People don’t start off all squeezed together, like they do at festivals. And with so many bad happenings in the past, there’s a heavier police presence. Oh, did I tell you that it’s hard to get off-duty police people as security these days? And look at the gate-crashing footage above, police on horses seemed to have no effect.

Now if it’s an older demo show, you tend not to see this. Then again, older people don’t like to stand, and many don’t even like to go to festivals. So, it’s the young ‘uns who are driving the festival business. And they are passionate about the acts and…

For a while there, there was a clampdown on the acts themselves, telling them not to incite bad behavior, to not tell the crowd to come forward. But there hasn’t been a disaster in the U.S. for years, so it’s not top of mind.

Could there be better security?

Of course! There could be barriers. There could be more cops. But someone has to pay for this, cops are expensive, never mind installing the big plastic barriers. And, if you have barriers, you instantly undercut the vibe that everybody is in it together. Then again, maybe there should be different levels of festival “seats.” Sure, everybody wants to be close, but when those tickets sell out you pay less to be behind.

As for VIP… They’re off to the side, this is what they pay for, to be separate. And oftentimes there’s a VIP viewing ground right in front of the stage, with a huge barrier protecting these people who pay for the privilege.

So, it was just a matter of when. The truth is festivals are incredibly profitable for promoters. They pay a flat fee for the acts and if they get enough people to come they can make tens of millions, not only on tickets but overpriced food, souvenirs… Then again, we’ve learned there can only be so many festivals, we’re past peak festival. So, the ones that remain, do we need a code, defined security requirements for each and every one?

If promoters were smart, they’d get ahead of this. Form a consortium to enact rules that every promoter agrees to. Otherwise, there will be hearings in Congress, and you never want to get the politicians involved, they don’t understand concert promotion, then again, concert promotion is opaque, just the way the promoters, everybody from the acts to the agents, like it. Ticketmaster is the enemy and everybody else skates. I could explain why Ticketmaster is not guilty, bottom line being that the acts are greedy, the fees are a way to keep some money out of commissionable income, but I could talk until I was blue in the face and most people wouldn’t buy it. You don’t want to believe the act is greedy, it’s easier to blame the corporation.

So the bottom line is these people are dead. And they’re never coming back. Their families are ruined, tragedies like this stick with parents until their own deaths. It’s just too much to get over.

So, the goal of everybody involved will be to say it’s an isolated event and move on, but I think the waters are choppier here. Then again, in today’s fast-paced world how many people are gonna care about this next week? Even mass shootings only get a day or two of headlines, and then…

So, is the public willing to take the risk, to assume it? Printed on their tickets a release absolving the promoter of liability?

Well, the truth is people no longer care about the fine print, which they click through ad infinitum online every day. But if you put it in plain English, do you want to die at a concert? You won’t find a single person who says yes. And that’s the problem right there. We need a zero tolerance policy, and as we can see from tonight in Houston, we’re far from one.

“How a little-known New Jersey truck driver defeated a top state Senate power broker on less than $10,000”: https://bit.ly/2ZTFFWi

The people want change. Don’t you?

Maybe not if you’re a billionaire. America works great if you’re rich, if you’re poor, not so much. Unless you’re a baby boomer you don’t even remember an era where there was a strong middle class, when both parents didn’t have to work in order to pay the bills. Life is hard, and if you’re on the wrong end of the stick you’re sick and tired of hearing it’s your own damn fault, that you haven’t picked yourself up by your bootstraps, just aren’t working hard enough. They tell you since you have a flat screen and a smartphone you should be happy, look at how much better you’re doing than the poor of yore! But today too many are poor.

Let’s not get into the details. Welfare. Political party. They’re irrelevant. People on both sides of the fence are sick and tired, at least the Republicans have realized this. Yes, Trump is a symptom, not the driver. Most didn’t think he’d be an incompetent nincompoop with authoritarian tendencies, they just wanted to put a stick in the spokes, they wanted change. Something offered with Bernie Sanders who was labeled too out there, a socialist, and then the senate president of New Jersey loses his job.

The focus has been on the penumbra. Religion, racism, important issues which pale in comparison to money, THERE JUST ISN’T ENOUGH OF IT!

And now the news is all about inflation. Unlike the fat cats in Congress, elected officials, most of America is on a fixed income, with no passive investments, and when prices go up, their lifestyle goes down. Hell, most people don’t even have any money in the bank, never mind losing ground with the miniscule interest rates the institutions pay. What is end game?

Meanwhile, the lifestyles of the rich and famous are paraded in front of our eyes 24/7. Not only on television, but social media, do you think this doesn’t cause resentment?

Furthermore, the internet delivers power. Running from the bottom and winning would have been an impossibility in the past. You needed money, and the ability to get the word out. Have a hot message and it spreads like wildfire online, FOR FREE! And one of the hot messages is people are sick and tired of the way things have been going in government.

The Republicans, the party of the fat cats, has had to realize its constituency has changed. That it’s the blue collar people who are running it, truly. Trump literally said he loved his uneducated. Meanwhile, on the left, titans of government parade their Ivy League degrees, telling everybody they know better, when the truth is they’ve succeeded in a rigged system everybody else has been closed out of. As for clamping down on the rich, government can’t even get rid of the carried interest rule. So, let me see… You’re making MILLIONS at your everyday job but you’re being taxed at capital gains rates, tell me how that’s fair again?

Whenever the left has a renegade, someone testing the limits on the behalf of the financially disadvantaged, they’re marginalized, told they’re a kook and to get in the back of the bus because everything comes from the top and you have to earn your place. Meanwhile, on the right you can go from zero to hero overnight and you’re embraced!

America no longer works for most of its citizens. Ponder that. Most of the people feel they’ve gotten a raw deal. But now they have power, as a result of the internet. Speaking of disinformation, the powers-that-be specialize in it while they get paid high salaries with great health insurance and accomplish nothing. It’s not only the left, the right is culpable in Congress too, if they think this is working for them, their do-nothing posture, they’re wrong.

The end of democracy? Maybe it already happened. As George Carlin said, you can vote, do it if it makes you feel good, but the owners of this country don’t want to give up control. But now the owners want to be rock stars and we see them every day and we’re pissed. I mean who is this pisher Mark Zuckerberg with all that money, what did he add to society, he’s not Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. It’s kinda like Wall Street today, it’s not about building things, but an end unto itself, finance. Which is why we saw the Game Stop phenomenon earlier in the year. People are so pissed about the way things  are that they’re willing to LOSE MONEY just to make a point, to show Wall Street it’s not all powerful.

This is just the beginning. This is not an anomaly. Actually, the Democrats were early with AOC, but she and the Squad have been marginalized. I mean who in Congress on the left is representing the common man. Don’t give me facts, it’s all about feel. Tell me what we can do in public schools while you send your kids to private schools. The hypocrisy is damning.

Expect more of this.

You’re gonna love this. Chris Kimsey, producer and engineer for the Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, Duran Duran and more, not only opines on those records, he also goes deep into equipment, technique and Dolby Atmos. If you have any interest in the studio, this is right up your alley. And even if not, you’ll dig the stories. Amazing!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chris-kimsey/id1316200737?i=1000540733531

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast?

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast